Is this even legal?

My first tab, the red one, simply read, “LEGAL?” We were stationed at Ft. Gordon in Augusta, GA. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what was required to homeschool – or even if it was legal within that state.

Across the pages in that section were phrases like, “Is this legal?”, “What are the regulations?”, “Do I have to file?”, “Do I have to apply?” (I laugh about that one when I think about it now.)

And then, at the bottom of that page I wrote in big, bold capital letters, “FIND OUT FOR EMELIE.”

Those words served as a reminder to not freak-out.
To figure it out.
To ride out the storm of my emotions and look for answers.

And so I did.

I Googled “homeschool state laws” and the first link took me straight to the Home School Laws page of the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association).

From there I was able to click on “Georgia” and download a summary analysis of the homeschooling law in Georgia. I learned exactly what was needed to “legally” teach my child at home in Georgia:

1. Submit an annual declaration of intent, listing the child(ren) I intended to homeschool, to my local school superintendent.
2. Provide a basic academic educational program that included reading, language arts, math, social studies, and science.
3. Spend 4 1/2 hours/day schooling, 180 days/year.
4. Maintain and submit attendance reports to the local school superintendent on a monthly basis.
5. Write an annual progress report for my homeschooled child(ren).
6. Have a high school diploma or GED diploma to teach my child(ren).
7. Have my child(ren) take a national standardized achievement test every three years beginning at the end of the third grade.

With answers in hand, the question about legality became a non-issue.

I knew the expectations.
I knew what steps to take.
I could move to my next raging doubt.

How in the heck do I know what to teach?

My blue tab read, “SUBJECTS?”. It might as well have read, “Where’s Waldo?”, because that is EXACTLY how I felt. I knew that legally I had to provide a program with reading, language arts, math, social studies and science, but that was all I knew.

I decided to try the local Barnes & Noble and see what they offered in the way of homeschooling resources.
Are you laughing?
You should be.

I remember seeing the book, “Homeschooling for Dummies”.
I almost bought it.
No really, it was IN MY HANDS.

And then I had a revelation – a “Dummie” probably shouldn’t teach her own kid – so I put it back. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all.

What DID make it to the check-out was another book, What Your Second Grader Needs to Know. I recognized right off that it wasn’t a full program, but it did give me a baseline for what I thought my daughter needed to know by the end of her second grade year.

When it arrived I must admit to feeling overwhelmed – it was a tome – but, when I began reading, I felt a great sense of relief. The Well Trained Mind not only gave me endless resources, but it literally mapped the way.

I knew what subjects I wanted to cover, how I wanted to cover them, and I even began to understand there were various styles and methods of homeschooling.

The storm was slowly subsiding as another section of my “Spaz-Attack” binder gave way to answers.

If I was to be a REAL teacher, didn’t I have to grade? How would I measure the extent of my child’s knowledge without grades?

I seriously had no clue how easily I would be able to measure understanding in mine and Emelie’s one-on-one, day-to-day interaction.

Knowing the state I lived in at the time required progress reports, and not quite sure how to keep progress reports without keeping grades, I decided to grade Emelie’s work. It was time-consuming, frustrating and always overly calculated (pun intended).

Two weeks later I dumped the idea of grades altogether and traded it in for “do-overs”.

Miss a math problem? Do it over.
Miss a spelling word? Do it over.
Miss an answer to a science question? Do it over.

It was easy to see what was missing in her understanding, as well as what she completely grasped.

I marked this discovery as one of the most rewarding “rites of passage” for me as a homeschooling parent. I realized grades could only measure “so much”. Grades could NOT measure the things she knew that I failed to ask. Grades could NOT measure the depths of her lack of understanding in areas we needed to work on a while longer. Grades were topical/surface and her education was vast and deep and RICH.

Emelie is 13 and in 8th grade now. While we maintain archives of all our yearly work, the only subject she receives grades in is Math (and only because, so far, Teaching Textbooks does it for us).

Can I do this?

The final tab was yellow, and coincidentally labeled, “YELLOW”…as in yellow-bellied scaredy cat.

I was scared.
I did not (and still don’t) have a teacher certification.
How could I adequately teach ALL subjects without messing up somewhere?

What if I taught her “x” when it was supposed to be “y”?
Or heaven forbid, “a” when it was clearly “s”?

What if…
What if…

What if…I FAIL?

I’d like to tell you I found a quick and easy answer to this final divider tab.

I’d like to say the heavens opened and a “3-Step, No-Fail” process dropped right into my lap.

But I can’t say that, because that isn’t how it happened.

What DID happen was that I began to journal (in a separate notebook) some of my fears, some of my mistakes, some of my prayers, and then finally, some of my successes.

Day by day, week by week, and month by month my doubts gave way to resolve.

Conviction replaced confusion.
Resourcefulness replaced reaction.

I was homeschooling without fear or doubt.

Replacing Fear with Facts

In 2004, when I began homeschooling I felt very much alone. And yet, that was only my perception, because homeschooling was already on the rise across my nation.

Four years later, in December 2008, the Institute of Education Sciences’ National Center for Education Statistics published data from the 2007 NHES (National Household Education Surveys) survey showing an estimated 1.5 million students were homeschooled in the United States in the Spring of 2007.

The percentage of school-age homeschoolers increased from 2.2 percent in 2003 to 2.9 percent in 2007.

“The increase in the homeschooling rate (from 1.7 percent in 1999 to 2.2 percent in 2003 to 2.9 percent in 2007) represents a 74 percent relative increase over the 8-year period and a 36 percent relative increase since 2003.”

The Homeschooling Population is growing – for whatever reason (the report lists the top three reasons selected by parents of more than two-thirds of students) – as are co-operatives, homeschool curriculum companies, resources, opportunities and acceptance.

The homeschool climate vacillates, but I am still very excited to be a part of it.

What were your fears when you started? Or, if you recently considered homeschooling, what are your current fears and doubts?